13 & 14 December 2023, KBC Brussels

KBC organizes for the second time an exclusive 2-day Winter School for a selected group of PhD candidates  and postdocs of the 5 Flemish universities.

Focus of this year’s edition: an interdisciplinary case competition to solve real-world Environmental, Social and Governance problems defined by  four different companies.

Why participate?

1. You want to apply your knowledge and ideas to real-world ESG challenges.
2. You want to challenge yourself as part of an interdisciplinary team of PhD candidates and postdocs coming from different fields of expertise and different universities.
3. You want to get an inside view of the corporate world, and reflect on labour market trends and challenges, corporate social responsibility (CSR), company culture, …
4. You want to learn from PhDs coming from different academic backgrounds why they decided to transfer to the corporate world, which competences they brought to the work floor, and which competences still needed further developing.
5. You want to expand your professional network with PhD holders

Who should participate?

Doctoral candidates (≥ 3^rd year of their PhD trajectory) and postdoctoral researchers from all domains.

KBC puts great emphasis on diversity, on diverse teams and diverse expertise to solve problems in a sustainable way, and therefore welcomes early-stage researchers from all research backgrounds.

What to expect?

• Four real life cases by companies to be solved in teams of five PhD candidates and postdocs.
• Participating companies and cases will be disclosed in the course of October 2023.
• 100 PhD candidates and postdocs from the Flemish universities will be selected to participate and form teams to work on the cases as of November 2023.
• End of November, team presentations will have to be submitted and participants will have to make their personal selection of workshops and lectures as offered by KBC.
• 13 December 2023 at KBC HQ in Brussels, participate in a variety of sessions by KBC employees (click here to consult the tentative programme). The jury will decide on the top team proposals.
• 14 December 2023, the top teams will pitch their case ideas after a training by Abigail Swillens.

Last year’s participants formed a Linkedin group that might be interesting for your reference.

How to register?

Please note that you will need to sign up to work on a case in a team, hand in the presentation and to be present on 13 and 14 December 2023 at KBC in Brussels.

Step one

Registration form: click here

Deadline for registration is 15 October 2023.

There is limited seating per university. Participants will be selected on the basis of their motivation statement.

Step two

The four cases by the four companies will be shared with the 100 selected participants. Based on your preference for a case, the coordinators will form interdisciplinary and interuniversity teams of 5 PhDs / postdocs. The teams then start working together and prepare a (poster) presentation for 13 December.

In case of questions, do not hesitate to reach out to the organizing team: phdtalent@vlir.be

Good luck!

Cancellations: Participation in the KBC Winter school is free of charge. However, if you cancel your registration after 4 December, we’ll charge a no-show fee of 150 euros. Only in case of illness, corroborated with a doctor’s note, you will not be charged the no-show fee.